3½ weeks before GE2010 leading pollsters were asked to make predictions: All but one said CON majority
In a similar exercise reported today the consensus is a hung parliament
Poll of the pollsters: Labour by a whisker… the polling firms place their bets for May http://t.co/s2lm5b0Pfd
— IndyPolitics (@IndyPolitics) January 4, 2015
Whenever I get asked to make political predictions I now say that that is not what gamblers do. What we do is to make an assessment of what’s on offer and decide whether it is worth a punt or not. So if you think that there’s a 50-50 chance of something happening and the odds are 6/4 then you have a value bet – in your eyes at least.
So I felt a bit sorry for my friends in the polling industry who were asked to go on the record with what they think will happen on May 7th. As we’ve seen these things can get remembered and even quoted back at you five years later.
There’s no doubt that that at the start of the GE2010 campaign the mood was that the Tories would win a majority even though that was not showing up in the polls.
Now the mood is that the outcome will be inconclusive. Maybe that will be wrong again.
Without Labour’s Scottish troubles you probably would be plumping for a LAB victory even a majority. But the potential loss of 25+ Scottish seats rather changes the mathematics.
My biggest bet at the moment is a sell spread trade of CON seats at 280. My reading is that the potential downside, CON winning more, is lower than the upside – the Tories getting fewer.
As for Labour that remains very tricky I’m certainly not ready to take a chance either way.